Glogster

I like assigning presentations to my students. I think every student should get to practice speaking in front of others over a topic in which they know quite a bit. Most teachers assign students to do a report over something (a book, the topic we just finished studying, etc.), and ask the students to talk about their findings in front of the class on a certain date. I like to add a visual aid to this project for several reasons:

1. It gives students an opportunity to creativity show off what they know. 
2. It gives me an opportunity to try to understand how in-depth a student's knowledge on this subject is. 
3. It gives the student's peers something else to look at besides just staring at the poor kid at the front of the room!

In the "old days," kids might be assigned to create a visual aid on a poster board. But those are cumbersome and require the purchase of extra art supplies (markers, rules, glue, etc). PowerPoint came along, and that was all the rage. Everyone liked being able to quickly throw together an informative slide show that traveled easily.

But PowerPoint is out. Kids are bored with PowerPoint. I've talked a little about Prezi in this post, but I want to give you another presentation visual aid option: Glogster.


Glogster's education version (http://www.edu.glogster.com/) is juuuust right for classroom use. Like I said, a glog is basically a digital poster. You can add audio, video, pictures, movement, color, links, and, of course, text to create a really cool presentation! It's super-easy once you get the hang of it (just like all the rest of these tools!), and it's free to use. (With the paid version, you can create user accounts for your students and have some more options, though.) You can use this to present information yourself, OR you can have students create their own Glogs for a culminating or getting-to-know-you activity. Glogster makes it pretty easy to figure out -- what with all the large instruction buttons and the FAQ section. Plus, you can e-mail the support staff at any time, and they're usually pretty prompt on replying (I think the longest I ever waited was 24 hours??) However, if you need extra help/ideas for Glogster, check out this link, this link, and/or this link.

Please note that there is a NON-educational version of Glogster -- at glogster.com. I always use the educational version (with the "edu" at the beginning of the URL), simply because I know there was a reason they created a version specifically for teachers. I've read a couple things about how the content in regular Glogster may not ALL be appropriate for the classroom...so I make sure to stick to the version geared toward education.

Here's the link to my latest Glog over technology in the classroom:

http://misshodde.edu.glogster.com/technology-in-the-classroom-8567/
(There ARE embedding capabilities, but it was so large that it covered the margins of my blog! So you'll just have to click the link for now!)

There are glogs over all subjects! But here are some ideas on ways to use Glogster in your classroom:

1. Back-to-School project: Ask each student to create a glog that showcases their personality or answers specified questions (nickname, hobbies, etc).
2. Book report: Instead of using poster board or PowerPoint, ask students to showcase their favorite book (or most recently read book) on a glog. 
3. Syllabus: Put your syllabus on a glog and embed it into your classroom website. Students will have access to a more colorful and fun version of a typical syllabus 24/7.
4. Research presentation: Instead of asking students to bring in a simple visual aid or create a PowerPoint, spice things up by having them create a glog to show while speaking about their research topic. Of course, the research presentation could be over anything!
5. Advertising: Ask students to create an advertisement (billboard, bumper sticker, etc.) for a product. This could work for a business class or an English class that's talking about persuasion.